Letters

February 7, 2000

Welcome home. You have found the definitive resource for all things Over the Rhine. We hope this trove of words and images will answer a few questions, raise a few eyebrows, make you smile and perhaps bring a tiny bit of the sea to your eyes as you remember, discover, uncover and wander around freely. We hope that you feel obscure places and faces inside of you waking up, warming to new possibilities. We hope that you leave here feeling somehow replenished and that as you step back out into the crisp night air you find yourself saying, I want my life to be a work of art.

Keep in mind that this is a work in progress. Only God can speak a universe into being and even then it supposedly took six days and was exhausting.

Our dream is that eventually you can come to this place and find the lyric to any song we’ve recorded, freely print out the music of a song you were hoping to perhaps have sung at your wedding, grin with us at bygone days, learn more about the gifted array of musicians that have helped us take these songs around the world and back, check out when you might have a chance to share an evening of music with Over the Rhine and maybe even get yourself a picture of that beautiful dog.

Many people have discovered our recordings more or less the same way that the ancient city of Babylon was discovered: by digging. We hope the fact that you can readily obtain any Over the Rhine recording right here doesn’t take too much of the fun out of the whole thing. But this place you’ve found is also our little storefront to the world. It’s our very own porch sale. It’s our vegetable stand. And we keep it well-stocked with homegrown goodies. Leave the money in the jar, and help yourself. We’re probably off working somewhere else. Yeah, probably in that place we used to call The Imaginary Apple Orchard.